Passing By
by Silawatsi
Summary: Being united for a single cause had made them an unstoppable force. Let's see what happens when an assassin is still searching for a challenge, a Siren is still looking for answers, and a mechromancer has no idea what she's getting into. What happens when only one of the vault hunters take that fateful train?
1. Chapter 1: What's an escort mission?

_Author's Note: Isn't it convenient that the Vault Hunters of Borderlands 2 boarded the same car, of the same train, all at the exact same time?_

 _What stories could be told, if all but one of the Vault Hunters missed that fateful train?_

 _Let's start with Zer0._

 _000ooo000_

"I'm just saying, at least this isn't an _escort mission_."

Two former Crimson Lance were out in the heat of a Pandoran afternoon, posted to "guard" the entrance to their employer's camp. If it weren't for the visible differences in their armor (and the missing arm on the current speaker), they could have been mistaken for twins.

Their complaining spared their lives.

Hidden by his Decepi0n cloak, Zer0 lowered his sword and paused to listen.

What was an escort mission?

The overqualified guard continued, holstering his pistol to gesture wildly with his remaining arm. "Remember the VIP we were assigned back on Androchen? The idiot had _assasins_ after him, and he still insisted on having afternoon tea time in the freakin' courtyard!"

The other guard tilted his helmet in a way that suggested a smirk. "Didn't that guy end up sneaking away from us in order to that?"

One-armed guard huffed. "Then they blamed _us_ when he got sniped." He moved his remaining arm as though to cross it, before looking down and sighing. "Guard duty may suck skag bits, but at least on Pandora they don't expect you to be a _body_ guard."

"Still sore about the VIP on Athenas?"

"Hell _yes._ I lost _my arm_ because that douchebag wouldn't stay put like I told him to! _"_

By now, the still-cloaked Zer0 had sheathed his sword and activated the recording function in his helmet. If he understood correctly, defending a target was _far_ more challenging than eliminating one…

Zer0 had been looking for a challenge for a long, long time.

Oblivious to his presence, the former Crimson Lance soldiers continued to commiserate about the grey hairs they accumulated defending clients from a laundry list of dangers, and the constant vigilance it demanded.

Zer0 took notes.


	2. Chapter 2: Ghosts of the Past

Nearly three weeks into his self-imposed challenge, Zer0 was starting to have second thoughts.

It wasn't that protecting a target from harm was beyond his skills - though there had more startlingly close calls than he'd care to admit.

It was the fact that _memories_ kept almost revealing themselves.

Zer0 had long since made peace with the fact that he couldn't remember the majority of his past. Sure, in the beginning he had wanted to know. It could even have been called an obsession.

But after so long of without any clues other than certain actions feeling _familiar..._

 _(slicing into living flesh, stalking the shadows without a sound, ambushing unsuspecting foes...)_

In the end, Zer0 had decided that metaphorically beating his head against a wall would never get him anywhere.

He'd declared to himself that whoever he was before, that person was dead. He was a new person now, and with that came a clean slate and all the freedom in the world. For a while, it was exhilarating, and as long as he kept moving from target to target he could ignore the nagging feeling that his job wasn't _done._

But what _more_ was there to assassination, other than stealth kills and getting paid?

When the really interesting jobs dried up, Zer0 figured it at least be worth a shot to try his hand at a mission type that he learned of by eavesdropping on the guards on his latest assassination mission... Guarding a living being from harm was something Zer0 had never done before, but he figured that would just mean he'd get a challenge to occupy his mind with.

...and that was when he started getting flashbacks.

Zer0 had been checking the perimeter as his "client" (a skag pup, who had been _conveniently_ orphaned a few days ago... _*cough cough*_ ) settled down for the night, when a fragmented thought floated through his mind:

 _This would be safer if the others were here._

It had come out of nowhere; and Zer0 didn't even know who the "others" were, other than something that was likely out of his forgotten past.

He just... knew. Like he knew the sun would rise in the morning.

The fragmented thoughts continued to ambush him whenever his attention was on a client, some of them comprehensible entire sentences, like the first... but most of them jumbled words, and an occasional feeling of _certainty_. Of what he was certain, Zer0 had no idea.

The assassin would by lying, if he said it didn't freak him out.

For the first time since waking up next to an alien archway and an enormous corpse with too many tentacles, Zero's past was coming back to haunt him.


	3. Morality Paradox

_Author's note: This story is going to jump from character to character, and takes place several months before the "train scene" at the beginning of the game._

 _Everyone's story is happening at the same time, and after a while their paths WILL cross._

 _For now? Let's see what's going on with Axton._

 _000ooo000_

 _Pandora,_ Axton decided, _is the best planet EVER._

No bullcrap rules of conduct, no stifling officers to tell him how he _should_ act. There was never any shortage of bad guys to shoot, and best of all; no _consequences_ for acting however the hell he wanted.

The former Dahl soldier wiped the blood of his bayonet with a filthy rag. Normally he'd leave the blood on, just because it looked cool. He made an exception for skag blood - after about a day, whatever it touched started smelling like a foul combination of excrement and vomit.

After loosing a set of clothing and a gun to that stench, Axton made of point of killing those buggers from afar.

After throwing the rag as far as he could into the sands, Axton pulled out his echo communicator. He snapped a couple of pictures of the half-dozen skag corpses in front of him, before attaching a few text messages and sending them to the number his current employer had given him.

His comm buzzed less than a minute later.

 _Nice work,_ it read. _Your payment will arrive within the hour. I know you mercenary types don't care much for sentimentality, but I'm going to say thank you anyways. With that skag den gone, my town will finally be able to get back to farming the bladeflower patch next to it._

Reading the last lines of the message, Axton grinned. Ethical and legal freedom were definitely perks of being a mercenary on Pandora, but Axton's favorite part was that he had complete freedom in which missions he picked up. There were always people willing to pay to get someone they didn't like filled with bullet holes, but Axton preferred the type of missions that Dahl almost never gave:

The ones where Axton was the _good_ guy.

Getting paid for shooting stuff was awesome. Getting _praised_ for it was icing on the cake.

Ten years ago, Axton had joined Dahl for exactly that. The recruitment posters had promised a grand career of liberating oppressed nations, rescuing citizens from the clutches of terrorists, and overall protecting the helpless by being a badass.

It only took one mission to open his eyes.

Oh sure, Dahl was involved in _everything_ they talked about on the recruitment posters... they were just on the opposite side.

After ten years of helping perpetuate corrupt politicians, mafia organizations, and whoever else waved around enough cash under a Dahl executive's nose, Axton decided to be a bit... _creative_ in his two week's notice.

Ironically, it was on a planet without morals that Axton was finally able to live by his own.


End file.
